Pizza Is the Best Breakfast (8 page)

Dennis makes haunting sounds and wiggles his arms in the air, trying to scare us again, before he finally leaves the cubbies. I take my cookbook back and toss it toward my book bag.

“This is why I can't make marshmallow ghosts,” I explain. “Because ghosts are as horrible as Dennis.”

*  *  *

Paige is sitting on the floor of the living room surrounded by the twins when I get home from school, so my afternoon is not off to a great start.

“Hi, Mandy,” she greets me, and I am kind of shocked then, because Paige is finally calling me by the right name, so Mom must have had a talk with her about it.

“Hi,” I answer, and I remember what Mom said about trying really hard to be nicer to Paige. “How was Grandmom's?”

“It was fun,” Paige says. “Do you want to play with Samantha, Cody, and me?”

“I don't play with the twins,” I answer. “Anyway, they are not even good at playing.”

“Okay.” Paige looks down and wiggles a rattle in front of one of the twins' faces, and she looks pretty sad about it actually.

“But,” I continue, “if you want to cook with me out of that cookbook, I will. You know, so we can both go with Grandmom to the carnival.”

“I'd like that.” Paige nods. “Do you want to pick the recipe?”

“Yes.” I nod my head and throw my book bag onto the couch to open it. I unzip the zipper and reach inside. I pull out my homework folder, my reading book, my pencil box, the Rainbow Sparkle windup toy that I am not supposed to bring to school, and seven ponytail holders.

But no cookbook.

I look inside the bag and can't see much in the
dark, so I turn the whole thing upside down and shake it.

Nothing.

“Oh no,” I say. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”

“What is it?” Paige asks.

“The cookbook is missing.”

“No, it's not, it's in the kitchen,” Paige says. “Isn't it?”

“No, I brought it to school. But it's not in my book bag.”

“Why did you bring it to school?”

“That is not important,” I say. “The important part is that it was stolen.”

“How do you know it was stolen?” Paige asks. “Maybe you lost it.”

“I didn't lose it,” I say. “I don't lose things. They get stolen.” And I am absolutely positive I know who the cookbook thief is, and this time, I can't even blame a ghost.

“I THINK WE SHOULD TELL
Grandmom,” Paige says. It is a whole hour after I discovered that the cookbook is missing, and we are sitting at the kiddie table in the toy room, deciding what to do. “If we tell her the book was stolen, then she can't expect us to cook five things out of it in two days.”

“We already cooked the egg salad,” I remind her, and I make a face because egg salad is still disgusting.

“Even so,” Paige begins, “we won't be able to
cook anything else without recipes. We should tell her what happened to the book.”

“But then she'll ask why I brought it to school,” I say.

“Tell her you brought it for show-and-tell,” Paige suggests, and this is not a bad plan.

I nod my head. “Maybe,” I say. “But I bet Grandmom would like it better if we still tried to cook something without the book.”

Paige thinks about this for one second. “You're probably right. But I don't remember any recipes off the top of my head.”

“Come on,” I say, and I stand up and scurry into the kitchen to open the pantry door. “I have an idea.” I examine each shelf of the pantry until I find what I am looking for: a box of pretzel sticks, which has probably been wedged into the corner of the pantry since before the twins were born, because no one in this house really likes pretzels.
These sticks crunch so loudly when you bite them that they make my teeth hurt and scratch the top of my mouth, but finally, they are going to be put to good use.

“Do you see any marshmallows?” I ask.

“Your mom keeps marshmallows in the house?” Paige asks like she is shocked. “Mine doesn't.”

“Sometimes,” I say. “But when she does, they're usually hidden somewhere.” Paige stands on her tippy toes, and it is very useful that she is ten years old and taller than me, because she spots it: a gigantic bag of marshmallows hiding behind the cans of green beans.

“Yes!” I yell. “Now we just need chocolate chips. Boost me onto the counter.” I pull out one of the bottom drawers, which is filled with dish towels, and step on top of it, then I use my arms to get onto the counter while Paige pushes me
up from behind. I kneel in front of Mom's baking cabinet, and I dig through the containers of flour and sugar until I find the bag of chocolate chips. “Got them!” I close the cabinet door and slide back down to the floor.

“Are you going to give me a hint about what we're making?” Paige asks.

“Marshmallow ghosts,” I say. “Anya saw them in the cookbook—you know, before it was stolen—and I think I remember the recipe.”

“Ooh, I hate ghosts,” Paige says. “I think there's a ghost in my house.” And my chin drops toward my chest.

“You have a ghost too?” I ask, and it comes out as sort of a squeak. I lower my voice then, because I do not want Mom to hear, and I whisper, “I am pretty sure there is a ghost in my house. I think it escaped from the Packles' Halloween porch.”

Paige nods her head very seriously, like this
story makes absolute sense. “The ghost in my house smells like ranch dressing. Sometimes, when it's early in the morning and I'm the only one awake, I'll come downstairs and smell ranch dressing everywhere.”

“Have you ever seen the ghost?”

“Nope,” Paige answers. “Have you seen yours?”

“No,” I say. “I do not want to either.”

“Our ghosts must not be that scary though, right?” Paige asks. “I mean, don't you think they would have done something bad by now if they were?”

“I guess so,” I say. “How do you think we can get rid of them?”

Paige pauses for a second, and then she lifts a single marshmallow out of the bag.

“By eating them, of course,” she says with a smile, and she pops an entire marshmallow in her mouth, handing me one to do the same. We stuff
our cheeks with marshmallows until we can't fit anymore inside, and we have to concentrate very hard on chewing so that we don't spit them out.

We then begin to use the marshmallows to create the ghosts. We stick the pretzel rods in the bottoms of them as a handle, and we push three chocolate chips into the sides of the marshmallows so that they look like the ghosts' eyes and mouths. When we each have one finished, we hold them up by their pretzel handles so they can speak to each other, like in a puppet show.

In my best spooky voice, I ask Paige, “What do you think they're going to do to us now?” while I wave my marshmallow ghost around like he is floating.

In an equally spooky voice, Paige answers, “I'm afraid they're going to bite our heads off,” and then she sticks her entire marshmallow ghost
inside her mouth and chomps down. I do the same to mine, and I am pretty sure these marshmallow ghosts are the best recipe I have ever made.

And for the first time all week, I remember why Paige truly is my favorite cousin.

*  *  *

“Dennis stole my cookbook,” I say to Anya the minute I see her at school the next morning. “He took it out of my book bag.”

“No way,” Anya says. “He is terrible.”

“Will you help me get it back?” I ask.

“Of course,” Anya answers, and this is why she is my favorite person in the world. “I'll go distract him. You look in his book bag.”

“What if it's not in there?” I ask.

“Then we'll check his desk.”

“What if he took it home?”

“I bet he didn't,” Anya says. “You stay here.” She points toward Dennis's cubby. “When you see me talking to him, make your move into the book bag.”

I hide behind the curtain in the cubbies and watch Anya walk over to Dennis's desk. She stands behind his chair so that Dennis has to
turn around to talk to her and is facing away from the cubbies. Anya is pretty much a genius, I think.

As fast as my legs can go, I run over to Dennis's cubby and unzip his bag. I don't like touching Dennis's things because they are covered in all his gross Dennis germs, but this is an emergency. I open the book bag as wide as I can and look inside.

“Yuck,” I say. Dennis's bag is filled with dirty tissues and candy wrappers and bottle caps and action figures (which he is not supposed to have in school) and a bunch of other dumb boy things.

But no cookbook.

I stuff his bag back in his cubby and march straight over to his desk. I do not even care about Anya's plan anymore, because I am furious.

“Give it back,” I say as soon as I reach him, and I say each word like there is a period after it.

“What are you talking about, Polka Dot?” Dennis responds.

“Give it back,” I say. “I know you have it.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“GIVE. IT. BACK!” I am yelling now. “It's very important!”

“I told you, I don't know what you're talking about!” Dennis answers. “I didn't take any of your ugly things.”

I step right over to Dennis so I am standing above his Mohawk, and I push my way toward his desk. I look inside and begin dumping out all of the contents—folders and notebooks and crinkled-up papers and dried-up markers and dusty raisins. They hit the floor one right after the other as Dennis scrambles to catch them.

“Mandy! MANDY!” I whirl around at the sound of Mrs. Spangle's voice. “What on earth is the problem
now
?”

“Dennis stole my cookbook,” I explain. “My grandmother gave it to me, and it is very important, and I need it back now or else I won't get to go to the carnival with my cousin, and he
stole
it.”

“I didn't steal it!” Dennis yells back. “I promise! Mrs. Spangle, I didn't.”

“Mandy, when was the last time you saw your cookbook?”

“Yesterday,” I say. “I had to bring it to school because I didn't want my cousin to cook out of it without me, because then Grandmom would have brought her to the carnival and not me, so I had it in my book bag and I was showing it to Anya and Natalie, and now it's GONE.”

“See, this is why I don't like you bringing things that are important to you to school,” Mrs. Spangle says. “But since that ship has already sailed, did you check your cubby?”

“Yes,” I answer.

“Did you look really well?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

Mrs. Spangle sighs at me then. “Go look. Natalie, can you help her? I know you're very organized about these kinds of things.” Natalie stands up and walks with me to the cubbies. We take every single item out of my cubby, and guess what? Still no cookbook.

“It's not here!” I call across the room.

“Whose cubbies are on either side of yours?” Mrs. Spangle asks.

“Julia's and Anya's,” I answer.

“Julia and Anya, do me a favor and go look around your cubbies and see if you find Mandy's cookbook,” Mrs. Spangle tells them. “Sometimes things wander into the wrong cubby by accident.”

Julia and Anya join Natalie and me in the
cubbies, and they root through their things. Anya pulls her book bag and jacket out of her cubby, and then both of us stand as still as statues and stare.

We stare at the cookbook that is lying upside down at the bottom of her cubby.

My cookbook.

“How'd that get in there?” Anya whispers to me.

“I don't know,” I say. “Maybe I put it in the wrong cubby?” Anya reaches down and picks up the book, and she tries to give it to me quickly before Mrs. Spangle can see.

“What's that you have there, Anya?” Mrs. Spangle asks.